


Man Out of Time

by freudensteins_monster



Series: With You 'Til The End Of The Line [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Agent Carter References, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Best Friends, Bucky Barnes & Steve Rogers Friendship, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes's family, Captain America: Man Out of Time, Captain America: The First Avenger, F/M, Gen, Old Bucky Barnes, Old Peggy Carter, Past James "Bucky" Barnes/Angela Martinelli, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Reunited and It Feels So Good, SHIELD, Steve Rogers Angst, Steve Rogers Feels, Super Soldier Serum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 18:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6622438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freudensteins_monster/pseuds/freudensteins_monster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following on from Maybe She's Got A Friend, Steve wakes up after 70 years in the ice and everyone he knew and loved has died. Or have they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man Out of Time

Coming home in one piece had been a dream hidden away in the back of his mind while he was getting Hydra out of Europe. _But I never dreamed it would be like this_ , Steve mused as the modern world passed by the tinted window of the sleek black car Nick Fury had implored him to enter. It was so damn noisy and busy, and what the hell was with all those cinema screens plastered all over Times Square? It made his head hurt, metaphorically speaking, so he leant back and stared at the roof of the car (closing his eyes was not currently an option). Eventually the car came to a stop and Fury got out, indicating that Steve should follow him. Only once they were through the doors and security checks of the same building Steve had escaped did Fury start talking.

“I’m the director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. S.H.I.E.L.D. for short. We are a government agency handling the slightly weirder end of the spectrum of everything from law enforcement to espionage, even saved the world a few times. Whatever the normal alphabet agencies aren’t equipped to deal with – we are,” Fury explained as he led Steve to the elevator bank, stepping in to a car that was already waiting for them. When the doors closed, leaving all the other agents who had been escorting them behind, Fury continued talking. “S.H.I.E.L.D. was set up a few years after the end of the war, built on the foundations of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, by your friends Howard Stark and Peggy Carter.”

Steve’s stomach dropped in a way that had nothing to do with the movement of the elevator.

“Howard was scouring the ocean floor for you, in some capacity, for over a year before he officially called it off and let the army declare you killed in action. His attempts to recreate Erskine’s serum continued for a few more years, but that eventually got archived by Stark Industries, though other people and shadier organisations dusted off the research from time to time, with varying degrees of success. No one’s ever come close to making another you, though,” Fury added with a small smile, leading Steve out of the elevator to a stylish, decidedly modern looking office overlooking the city. “Take a seat, Captain.”

Steve flinched but eased himself down onto a black leather sofa on the opposite side of a glass coffee to Fury. He couldn’t get comfortable but stopped trying after a few seconds.

“Everything alright, Captain?” Fury asked, and Steve knew he meant ‘here in this moment’, because how the hell could everything be alright?

“This is not how I remember debriefings normally going,” he mumbled, his eyes flicking over the décor.

“This is not a normal debriefing,” Fury replied offering him a sympathetic smile.

Steve turned his head, hearing the agent coming to the door before he and Fury saw her. It was the same woman who met him when he woke, though she’d changed out of her faux army uniform into something more… modern. She’d taken off most of her makeup and pulled her hair up, but the sad smile she had on when he first saw her remained in place.

“Hi… Captain Rogers,” she said nervously, placing a box in front of Fury. “I’m so sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“It’s fine,” Steve waved off. “I, uh, appreciate the effort.”

She smiled before addressing Fury. “Will there be anything else, Director?”

“Thank you, Agent Rigsby. That’ll be all.”

Once they’re alone again Fury started the debriefing, and it was very brief, just Steve recalling everything he could leading up to putting the plane in the water. Then Fury hold him what happened after; how HYDRA was dismantled, how Hitler was defeated, how the war was won. Steve had the next 70 years of history to catch up, but Fury said they’d get to that later. Fury opened the box and pulled out a padded envelope. Inside was everything Steve would need to get by in the modern world: a drivers licence, a social security card, a bank card connected to an account S.H.I.E.L.D. had set up for him with 70 years of army back pay – plus interest, keys to an apartment in Brooklyn, and some sort of modern radio called a cell phone.

“Howard Stark would have killed his own mother to get his hands on something like this,” Steve remarked once the device was explained to him.

“I’m pretty sure Howard Stark had a hand in developing the technology. His son perfected it,” Fury added, nodding to the slim piece of metal and glass in Steve’s hand.

“Howard had a son?” Steve asked disbelieving. But, of course he had. It’s been seventy years, even if Steve felt like he just took a long nap. Everyone he knew was probably long gone. He hoped they’d had kids, and long happy lives. Seemingly hearing his thoughts, Fury patted the box.

“I know you’ve got a lot of questions, and hopefully the files in here will answer some of the more personal ones. For better or worse.”

Before long Steve was carrying the box down to a garage level where he was met by Agent Rigsby again. She sat next to him in relative silence as they drive away from the S.H.I.E.L.D. offices and across the Brooklyn Bridge.

“I’m afraid your old building, it’s… It’s not there anymore,” Agent Rigsby advised nervously. “But we found you a nice apartment in the same neighbourhood. It’s been retrofitted with top of the line security, but other than that we’ve tried to keep the technology to a minimum. We didn’t want to overwhelm you.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want that,” he murmured sadly, looking out at the mostly unfamiliar building facades. “Hey, I know that place. I got beat up behind that cinema,” he remarked suddenly, earning a smile from the agent next to him.

“As much as things have changed, some things haven’t. Did you ever have a hotdog from Nathan’s at Coney Island?” she asked conspiratorially.

“Yeah, I used to go there with… with my friend. A long time ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s… it’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault.”

Steve and the Agent fell silent again, and she only spoke up when they pulled up in front of an apartment building. She gave him a quick tour of his new modestly furnished apartment, pointing out some of his belongings that had been held onto whilst he was in the ice. She left him with a sad smile, her contact information, and the suggestion that he take his time to get settled and rediscover his old neighbourhood. He nodded his thanks, and locked the door behind her. He did a few circuits of his apartment before sliding down a wall and settling on the floor with the file box. He read all but two of the files that first night, unwilling to open Peggy’s thick file and Bucky’s notably thinner one. He left them on his dining table, studiously ignoring them as he went about getting himself acquainted with the city. He’d called Agent Rigsby, his S.H.I.E.L.D. liaison, with questions from time to time, questions like, “How do I get cash from this piece of plastic?”, “Why is everything so damn expensive?”, and “When/how/why on God’s green earth did they move the Dodgers to L.A.?”

He didn’t sleep much, feared it almost, and spent his nights walking familiar streets with strange new facades. Eventually he happened upon an old boxing gym that didn’t look like it had been touched by the modern world. He went there most nights, working away at a punching bag, and came to recognise the regulars even if he couldn’t really bring himself to engage them in conversation. Most nights when he arrived there were a couple of guys going at in the ring, one of them was a cocky loud mouth, his thick Brooklyn accent muffled by his mouthguard. Steve liked his bravado, and his technique, even if he did want to sock him in the jaw to get some peace and quiet from time to time.

“Hey buddy, you going home any time soon?” the mouthy boxer asked one night, well after closing. Steve had lost track of time – _ha!_ – and hadn’t seen the manager around to pay him for a few extra hours.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Steve retorted, not pausing in his bruising punishment of the punching bag.

“Well, I got a girl waitin’ on me. Any later and she’s gonna think I’m steppin’ out on her, so do me a favour and call it a night, huh?”

Steve stopped to face the boxer and froze.

“You alright, buddy? You look like you seen a ghost?”

Steve had definitely seen a ghost. A ghost that looked just like Bucky Barnes. His eyes were more green than they were blue, his hair, though slicked back, was way too short on the sides, but that cocksure smirk…

“Sorry, uh… you just… remind me of someone,” Steve replied, trying to ignore the wave of panic and grief that washed over him.

“I get that a lot,” the boxer grinned. “American History nerd, right? WWII?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“My pops was a Howling Commando. People say I look just like him. Jamie Barnes, put'er there, pal,” the boxer, Jamie, said, extending his hand. Steve took a minute to rid himself of tape around his hands, using the time to get his breathing under control, before shaking his hand.

“Steve, good to meet you.”

“Steve, huh?” Jamie said, a crease in his brow vanishing before he completed his thought. “Now that we’re friends, you wanna do me a solid and get outta here?” he teased. “Some of us have got places to be.”

“Sure,” Steve attempted a chuckle. “I’ll just pack up my stuff and get out of your hair.”

Steve made his excuses and headed out, running home at top speed the second Bucky – no, _Jamie_ – was out of sight. He dropped his gym bag in the doorway and went straight to the thin folder on his dining table. He poured over every line, reading it over and over again until the sun came up.

Bucky had returned from the war in one piece, thank God. Then Peg recruited him into the SSR and he completed a handful of bizarre as hell missions with her. Howard asked both Peg and Buck to help found S.H.I.E.L.D. but Bucky declined. He married Angela Martinelli the following year. She was a stage actress and Bucky became her head of security. He worked occasionally as a technical consultant of a few WWII/Howling Commando flicks, teaching actors how to play war, and a producer on some of Angela’s plays. Angela built a solid career for herself and made a few movies, but her heart belonged to Broadway, so after a short stint in Hollywood they returned home. They did well for themselves, were smart with their money, and eventually moved to Manhattan, and by all accounts lived a life he and Buck had only dreamt of as kids.

In between Angela’s plays they had a couple of rugrats; Margaret and Steven. Margaret joined her Aunt Peg at S.H.I.E.L.D. She was currently heading up their London branch and was thinking of retiring before the year was out. Steven, with his father’s looks and his mother’s talents, had moved to L.A. to pursue an acting career, and gained a cult following after he and his wife were killed in a drink driving accident. Their infant son, Jamie, was left in the care of his grandparents. He resided with them in their Manhattan townhouse for a few years until Angela died of breast cancer in her sixties. After that Bucky moved them to a brownstone in Brooklyn, where he lived to this day.

_He lived. Bucky was alive._

Steve spent the rest of the day letting that sink in and wondering what the hell he was going to do with that information. Bucky was alive. Bucky was in his _nineties_ , for crying out loud. Announcing himself out of the blue would probably give his best friend a heart attack. He decided that his best plan of attack, was no plan at all. He’d just go about his new routine, and maybe have a few more conversations with Jamie, and try and learn about his friend through his grandson.

 _“God, how weird does that sound?”_ he wondered as he checked the contents of his gym bag for the fifth time. He arrived at the gym a few hours early, but he couldn’t sit at home any longer. He hammered away at the bag, losing himself in the repetitive sound of fist against canvas, until a familiar voice broke the trance.

“Hey, Steve!”

Steve turned to face Jamie, keeping his expression blank until he spied the well-dressed, silver-bearded man beside him.

“Bucky?”

“Told you I wasn’t crazy, pops,” Jamie grinned, his cheesy expression softened when he saw his grandfather’s eyes welled up with tears.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, Buck, it’s me,” Steve replied softly, taking a few hesitant steps forward. Bucky closed the gap, aided by a walking stick, and wrapped his arms around the impressive bulk of his old friend.

“Jesus, punk, where the hell have you been?”

They held on to each other as they laughed and cried, and Jamie eventually managed to usher them to a quiet corner of the gym where they could sit down before they fell down. Bucky was too overwhelmed to speak so Jamie filled in the blanks while the two friends calmed down.

Jamie had met his grandfather for brunch, as he did most days, and told him of the strange guy he’d met at the gym who looked like he could be Steve Rogers’ twin. Bucky had set his coffee down and promptly called his daughter. He’d seen a lot of weird shit working for the SSR and he knew that a “Steve Rogers’ clone” was not outside the realm of possibility. They made with the small talk before giving Margaret – Maggie – their code word for “I need a secure line.” He’d asked her straight out if any such thing had happened, and Maggie’s answer was stranger even than his own theory. Bucky wanted to seek him out but Maggie was unable to give him an address as only Director Fury and a handful of New York operatives had that information, so he’d had to wait until later that night for Jamie to take him to the gym.

“And here we are,” Jamie beamed before leaving the two of them to get reacquainted.

“You couldn’t even age a few years for me, could ya punk? Had to go and make me feel old.”

“I don’t know, Buck. You’re looking pretty damn good for ninety-five, I gotta say.”

“Well, say what you will about the Nazi’s, but their super soldier serum sure does keep the twinkle in one’s eye.”

“What? Buck, what super soldier serum?” Steve demanded, earning a familiar eye roll from the man next to him.

“It’s just a guess,” Bucky admitted. “I can’t remember a lot of what happened before you found me at that Hydra base, but considering how damn good I look,” he teased. “And how no injury or illness can keep me down for too long… I ain’t no doctor, punk, but I think the answers pretty obvious. Maggie has suggested running some tests, but I keep telling her no. She thinks it would be a boon to mankind, ‘think of all the good we could do, pops,’ she’d say. And I just keep reminding her that the world ain’t run by the good, the honest, or the well-intentioned. They wanted to make super soldiers then, they’ll want to make super soldiers now. And they sure as hell ain’t gonna find another guy like Steve Rogers to test it on in any of the five boroughs, that I promise you.”

An uneasy silence fell over the pair, but Bucky broke it by pulling out his phone and handing it to Steve. There was a picture of Bucky, the Bucky Steve remembered, with his arms around a beautiful dame in a wedding dress. Bucky ran a finger across the screen to show a different picture, encouraging Steve to look through his digital photo album.

“My Angie never did like the fact that I didn’t seem to age proper, actresses are always a bit sensitive about that sort of thing, but I liked to think the beard helped hide it,” he smirked.

“It’s a damn fine beard, Bucky,” Steve laughed as Bucky stroked said beard theatrically. “Angie seems like a she was a great girl, Buck.”

“She was an absolute spitfire, Stevie,” Bucky replied, the awe and loss evident in his quiet voice. “She was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was Peggy who introduced us. Have you looked Peggy up yet?”

Steve shook his head, unwilling to meet his friends eyes. “She’s alive, I take it?”

“Yep. Still kickin’. She’s got Alzheimer’s, though, and her kids have got her set up in a nursing home in D.C. I take the train down to visit her every other week. She has her good days and her bad days.”

“I couldn’t bring myself to read her file,” Steve admitted, clutching the phone a little tighter. “I only read yours last night after meeting Jamie. God, he looks so much like you,” Steve remarked, looking down at a picture of the two of them. The next one was of Bucky in his fifties next to a young man who looked similar to him, but not as close as Jamie did.

“That’s my Steven. Named him after you, which was I soon learned was a mistake because he somehow managed to inherit all of your recklessness,” Bucky added with a wry smile.

“Jesus, Bucky, your son,” Steve’s shoulders sagged when he remembered what he’d read in Bucky’s file. “And Angie. I’m so sorry,” he whispered, his eyes tearing up again.

“Hey. You listen here, punk,” Bucky ordered, grasping the side of his friend’s young face with an elderly hand. “I lived a long, full life, and one of the curses that comes with such a blessing is that you outlive a lot loved ones, a lot of friends. But I got one back,” Bucky cried, wiping Steve’s own tears away with the pad of his thumb. “I got one back, Stevie. And if that doesn’t make me the luckiest sonovabitch in all of Brooklyn, I don’t know what does.”

“I was gonna say the same thing,” Steve smiled, pulling Bucky in for another hug.

They stayed that way for a while before eventually letting go and pulling themselves together.

“Where the hell did Jamie get to,” Bucky mumbled, getting to his feet. “I’m half starved. You hungry, punk?”

“I could eat.”

“Good. We’ll grab dinner, and then in the morning you and I are gonna go see Peg,” he said, jabbing the handle of his cane under Steve’s nose, leaving no room for refusal. “If you’re lucky she won’t remember you, because if she does, oh boy, are you gonna get an earful.”

 

* * *

I went looking for inspiration for Old Bucky Barnes and rediscovered "Fashion Santa" and then a rather glamorous photo of him with a female counterpart, and thus it is my little idea that older Bucky and Angie were totally Mr & Mrs Fashion Santa...

Also, the female agent, the first person Steve meets upon waking, I called "Agent Rigsby" after the character the actress, Amanda Righetti, played on The Mentalist.

 

 


End file.
